


Inktober 2019 feat. One Mess of a Family

by livtontea



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Chapter Specific Warnings, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Human Dolores (Umbrella Academy), Inktober 2019, No Incest, Not Beta Read, TUA Inktober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-10 19:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 18,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20857091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livtontea/pseuds/livtontea
Summary: 2019's "Official" Inktober. I'm doing my best. It is not much.





	1. Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> heyyy so [@totallyevan](https://totallyevan.tumblr.com/) made an ["official" tua inktober prompt list](https://totallyevan.tumblr.com/post/187596364281/hey-everyone-i-decided-to-make-the-official-tua) and because i need to push myself and actually make content for these disaster humans i'm going to try. i am going to try and do this inktober. good luck me.

He honestly doesn't know how it came to this, hiding in his room as his siblings eat cake and otherwise celebrate downstairs.

He’s planning on joining them, even makes it to the kitchen entrance. But then he hears their laughter, the exclamations of joy and the happy giggles from either Vanya or Five reaching his ears. Diego is about to step inside, his bag filled with his attempt at gifts in hand, but.

But.

Klaus is shouting something at Ben, who’s laughing in return, both of them clearly ecstatic the former had managed to save up enough energy to manifest their ghost brother today. Allison’s clapping, because although healed, her voice is still better off used sparingly right now. Five is giggling, trying to be discreet about it and muffle his mirth into his hands. He can hear Vanya’s laugh too, much freer and lighter than it was even less than a year ago. Luther is talking to Mom about something, probably the recipe for the cake she made. He too is obviously having a good time.

Diego just…

He doesn’t fit. He doesn't belong in this room filled with smiles and laughter and happiness, and really? He doesn’t think he belongs here at all. Where he belongs is the old gym he lives at, the lamps dim and the walls dark, a musty smell wherever he goes. He belongs in the dark with nothing to keep him company but his knives and his own vigilance. He belongs in the street with a blade in his hand and a mask covering his face, adrenaline coursing through his veins, his breathing sharp and quick as he feels the thrill of a fight.

Diego doesn’t have any of that now, so the next best thing is the dusty room he used to occupy. He leaves the bag by the entrance of the kitchen and slips to the stairwell, his footsteps near silent as he disappears into the second floor.

If he curls up on the bed - a cloud of dust rises as he sits, making him cough - and presses his face to his knees, bringing his hands over his ears a pressing down, he can almost block out the sounds of his siblings downstairs. Keyword being, almost. He feels like Klaus, in this strange imitation of a fetal position. He’s seen his brother curled up like this more times than he can count, tears streaming down his face and his lips moving is a silent chant of _“shut up, shut up, go away make it stop shut UP-”_

Nope. He’s not thinking about that right now. Diego squeezes his eyes shut a little tighter and presses down on his ears a little harder.

He holds his breath.

Like this, he feels almost weightless. Almost like he’s just floating by in the dark, nothing holding him down, nothing dragging him back to the shore. Or worse, deeper under the water. He just feels. He feels like nothing.

There’s a knocking at his door. Fuck. Somebody had to notice he wasn’t there with the rest of them, somebody noticed he was gone when he said he would come. Diego curls tighter in on himself and prays that if he ignores the knocking it will go away.

It doesn’t. The knocking grows louder and more insistent, and Diego wonders, it’s not like these doors have locks. The person on the other side seems to realize the same thing, because the hinges creak as the door is nudged open. Diego opens his eyes and looks up.

Ben stands in the doorway, tinted slightly blue. Diego’s eyes move behind him, looking for Klaus or Five or another one of his siblings. Ben is alone.

“Can I come in?”

Diego doesn’t really want to talk right now. Or ever. Why can’t he just stay here in the dark where he belongs? He shrugs.

Ben steps into the room, closing the door behind him. “You said you’d be downstairs.”

Diego shrugs again. Ben’s right, he did say that. He said it and he didn’t do it and that’s. He doesn’t know. He’s supposed to be with the others.

Ben sits next to Diego, crossing his legs and putting his hands in his lap. “Are you okay?”

Diego lets the pressure in his chest loosen. The air spills out and he breathes again. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“...I don't know.” Yes.

“Okay.” Ben scoots a little bit closer to Diego, not touching. Diego can feel the chill coming off of his brother. Ben was cold before, but he’s even colder now. Now that.

No.

“You’re not breathing again.”

Diego takes a breath.

“Why are you up here?” Diego has a feeling Ben already knows, but he tells him anyway.

“I didn’t want to… I didn’t- I. You guys were having fun.”

Ben looks at Diego. “And? You should’ve been having fun too.”

Diego shakes his head the slightest bit. “I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Ben asks. “Why not?”

Diego shrugs again. He wants to say something, anything to tell Ben about what’s going on and how he feels and. He can’t. “I don’t know.”

“...Do you want to be alone?”

Diego shakes his head. Please don’t leave him alone with his thoughts and the emptiness and his knives and nothing else. “Stay.”

“Okay,” Ben says. “Okay. You know what? We can’t have fun without you. You’re part of our family, Di. You gotta be there.”

“I can’t.”

“I know. So is it okay if we come here?”

Diego opens his mouth to say that he can’t let them do that. He hates this, hates how he brings them down, and he hates how he doesn’t know how to stop. He hates how he knows it’s all not true and how his mind is blowing things out of proportion and how this is just one of those days that make him feel like utter shit but even so are temporary, and he despises how he can’t do anything about it. Ben seems to understand.

“It’s not a problem,” he says. “We want to celebrate our birthday with all of us, Diego. You too. Klaus is probably waiting to explode a popper over your head.”

Diego snorts weakly. “Please don’t let him do that.”

“I won’t,” promises Ben. “Come on. It’ll be fun. We’re all gonna sit here in your room and play ‘Go Fish’ or something, and we’re gonna have a blast because it’s our birthday and we deserve it.”

He has to think for a moment, but. “Okay,” says Diego. “Okay.”

They end up playing Uno. Watching his siblings laugh and talk and moan over their cards Diego smiles to himself. It’s all still pretty shitty, and he still finds himself thinking that maybe the others should have stayed downstairs. But when Klaus throws his arm over Diego’s shoulders in a dramatic gesture or when Five smirks at him over the top of his carefully hidden cards, Diego thinks that maybe. Maybe this is one of the best birthdays he’s ever had after all.


	2. Guns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is shorter than the previous one (hallelujah) but i think i did a pretty good job!

Really, it’s not like he hasn’t seen a gun before. He’s seen guns, held guns, fired guns. Lately, fired a lot more guns than he could say he’s comfortable with. But a gun being pointed straight at him? Klaus didn’t sign up for this.

“Woah, woah, woah,” he says, throwing up his hands. “Let’s not get too hasty there, buddy.”

Five rolls his eyes and shifts the barrel away from Klaus. “I could’ve shot you, moron.”

“Uh.” Is he for real? “Yeah, you could’ve. Which is why you shouldn’t go sticking guns in people's faces, Five. That’s so impolite.”

"Shut up,” Five rolls his eyes.

Klaus gracefully ignores him. “Where did you even get a gun?”

Five raises his eyebrows and throws a pointed look to the wall behind Klaus, where a rifle and other various weapons are mounted. Terrible decoration, but what can he say? Dad loved to have a gun or two laying around. Or four. Or five. How many guns do they even have in the house?

“Okay, fair point. _Why_ do you have a gun?”

Five looks at Klaus like he's an idiot. “I need it.”

Klaus rubs his hands over his face and groans. “You’re impossible. And that’s coming from _me_.”

“Can’t you go bother Diego or something? I’m busy.”

“Diego’s out. With his,” Klaus wrinkles his nose, “girlfriend, or something. Lady cop."

“Go bother Luther.”

“Luther’s working on the garden! I can’t just go and disturb him from his. Flowers, or whatever.”

“Luther doesn’t grow flowers. It’s a vegetable garden.”

Klaus crosses his arms. “Oh, fuck off. I’m here and you’re dealing with it.” Ben's catching up with some reading, so Klaus can't hang out with him either.

Five rolls his eyes, _again_, and doesn’t answer. He goes back to examining his gun. Klaus decides that he would very much like to remain without any bullet holes in him, so he walks over to Dad's old chair and carefully sits on the edge. Five pays him no mind, and continues fidgeting around with the weapon.

Klaus shivers. He fucking hates guns. Too many memories of holding a pistol with shaky hands as a child, too many reminders of warm hands and gentle gestures floating up in his brain when he looks at a gun. Too many memories of rifles and machine guns and bullets piercing skin. Blood pouring out onto the ground, staining his skin, getting under his fingernails.

The silence is getting a little too suffocating, so Klaus decides to take a risk and breach it.

"Why do you like them so much anyway?"

Five looks at him from the corner of his eye. "Them?"

"Guns," specifies Klaus.

"I don't."

Klaus frowns. "Yeah you do. You're practically obsessed with them. You're literally messing with a gun right now."

Five sighs and twirls the weapon in his fingers. "Doesn't mean I like them."

"Well do you?"

"No."

"Why not?" insists Klaus. "Why do you use guns so much if you don't like them?"

"They're efficient. Quick. They get the job done."

"Well then why do you not like them?" Klaus reaches back and props himself up with his arms so he's slightly reclining while still sitting up. "You're all about efficiency."

Five is quiet, and then softly says, "I had a gun. In the apocalypse, I had a gun. We all knew how to use a gun for missions too. And I had to use a gun in the Commission."

"And?"

"I've killed a lot of people with guns, Klaus."

"...Oh."

Five snorts without humor. The gun is still in his hand. "Yeah."

Klaus debates on whether or not he should say it, and then thinks, Five probably knows already, doesn't he. "Me too."

"I know."

“Why do you have the gun right now?”

“...I don’t know,” admits Five. “It seemed like the right thing to do. I don’t know.”

Klaus thinks, oh. He gets it. He stands back up and walks to Five, reaching out and gently plucking the gun from his fingers. Five doesn’t try to take the gun back. Klaus puts it on the table.

“Wanna get waffles?” he asks. “I’m kind of in the mood for waffles.”

“You always are,” halfheartedly complains Five.

Klaus raises an eyebrow. “Is that a yes?”

Five sighs. “Yes.”

“Let’s go. Waffles await us, and guns do not.”

“Yay,” sarcastically says Five.

Klaus decides to be generous and pretends he doesn’t hear the clear fondness in his brother’s voice. They go downstairs. The sight of guns and thoughts of time travel stay behind in the old room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all of these can be found on my tumblr too btw


	3. Monocle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings for implied/referenced self-harm and drug use (needles) in this chapter

_Imagine an invisible hand, picking up a monocle and setting it on its edge. Imagine the hand giving it a good twist and letting go. Imagine the monocle spinning in place like a coin. Don’t you want to know what side it will land on?_

Luther is on the moon. It’s cold, it’s dark. The only other living thing hundreds of miles around him is his plant. He waters it every morning after he wakes up, because time on the moon is harder to track.

Luther has to squeeze through doorways. His body is too large. Too gruesome. Too inhuman. He often sits on his bed and scratches at his skin, trying to pick the constant itch away. It never works. All it leaves him with is raw red skin and a burning pain in his limbs.

_The monocle spins._

Diego exhales as his foot collides with a criminal’s head. There’s a sickening _crack_, and the man falls down to the ground. Diego stands over him, breathing heavy. He doesn’t try to catch his breath.

The bound man and woman behind him whimper. He turns, looking at their terrified faces, and thinks, it has always been like this. Diego grabs their landline and dials 911.

_The light reflects off of the clear glass, spreading shapes across the flat surface._

Allison smiles and waves, smiles and waves. Camera shutters click, again and again, taking picture after picture. She has to focus on her press smile, worrying it will fade if she loses concentration.

She had tried to talk to Claire this morning. A futile attempt.

Somebody shouts something about her upcoming movie, and she’s glad to have an opportunity to speak instead of wordlessly grin at the lenses.

_The edge of the monocle glints metal._

Klaus sits in an alleyway, needle poised over his arm. He’s shaking, the beginnings of withdrawal starting to kick in. If he doesn’t do it soon, he won’t be able to get rid of them until it’s too late. The sharp needle seems clean, at least.

He tightens his grip on the syringe, and ignoring Ben’s disapproval, plunges the needle into his arm.

_It spins once, twice again. The monocle seems like it’s about to fall, but just as it tilts dangerously to the side, something nudges it back into place._

Five isn’t here.

(In the future, the fifth Hargreeves sibling sits alone, a plastic mannequin by his side. He’s holding a bottle of vodka. He can’t be older than fifteen, but he’s already drunk out of his mind. He thinks it might be his birthday. He doesn’t think at all.)

_Twisting through the air, twisting through their lives. The monocle doesn’t stop spinning._

Ben watches Klaus shoot up. He’s seen it happen so many times, but somehow it’s still weirdly fascinating. Klaus pushes down on the syringe plunger and the drugs inside leak into his bloodstream. His eyes go unfocused, and he slumps back against the dirty brick wall, a resemblance of a smile on his face.

Ben sighs and sits next to him, hoping that the night won’t hit below-zero temperatures. The book he takes out as he waits is soft from use, the edges fraying and the cover losing color.

_It slows._

Vanya’s fingers ache and her hand is almost numb, but she doesn’t stop playing. The tempo grows and she feels herself inflate, growing with the music, becoming louder and brighter and-

A cat meows. Her fingers slip and the passage falls apart. Vanya’s in her apartment practicing the violin, and the Stravinsky runs aren’t improving. She silently places the instrument and bow back into the case.

Mister Puddles meows from her window again. Vanya goes to open it wider and let the animal in. Stupid cat.

_With a clatter, the glass monocle falls on its side. It shatters._

_There is no heads or tails._


	4. Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for death and mild gore this chapter

The one moment Ben is sure he’ll never forget is his own death.

He will never forget the sickening feeling of the Horror pulling at his skin a little bit harder than usual. He will never un-remember the tension and release of his abdomen snapping. He’ll never leave behind the terrible, terrible feeling of despair and then resignation when he realizes: it’s too late.

All that had been left of him was shreds of clothing and a thick smear of blood on the floor.

Ben will always be followed by the dread of opening his eyes and knowing that everything is different now, and it will never be the same. He still thinks about standing by his own statue for the first time, watching Klaus laugh hysterically and bash his head against the ground in a fit of grief and drug-induced mania. He still thinks about Diego crying in the rain as fat droplets of water roll down metal cheeks in a caricature of tears.

Ben thinks about Luther clenching his fists until he hears bones creak, and Allison pressing her hand to her mouth so tightly she can only breathe through her nose. Vanya, head bowed, not meeting anybody’s eyes. Mom smiling blankly at Ben’s monument, eyes unfocused. Pogo positioned slightly to the side of them all, eyes moist.

Dad didn’t even attend the funeral, and Ben is a little bit grateful for that. The statue doesn’t even look like him.

Ben thinks that there are other things high up on his “won’t forget” list. “Can’t forget”. Same difference.

Klaus’s first overdose is on there.

Diego getting his scar. The big one, the pale line traversing the side of his head, narrowly missing his eye.

Five disappearing.

But dying isn’t something you can ever forget. No amount of trauma and repression can save you from the remains of that night. The remnants of getting torn and scattered like a piece of paper in the wind.

Ben can still feel a dull ache in his abdomen. It’s always there, just slight enough that he’s probably imagining it.

_(“Ben. Ben, look at me. Come on! Look at me, Ben, _please_. You can’t- You can’t. Don’t die, Ben. Don’t make me lose another brother. Don’t leave me. I- we- we need you. We need you. Please.”_

_The sobs fade as Ben closes his eyes.)_

He doesn’t sleep, but if Ben could, he knows what he would dream about.


	5. Umbrella

The plastic umbrella spins in Klaus’ hands. He twists it, rotating the pole in his hand and watching the canopy spin over him. If it were sunny, the light would be hitting the transparent plastic and shining onto him from the outside. It’s raining.

The more he spins it, the more droplets fly off. Ben wrinkles his nose as a couple go straight through him.

“Stop it.”

“You can’t even feel it,” says Klaus.

“It’s uncomfortable.”

“It’s fun. See?” Klaus says, giving it another twirl.

Ben steps back. Klaus steps forward. He grins at his brother, not bothering to reign in the wild look in his eyes. “Come on. Sibling bonding fun times.”

Ben sighs, deep and resigned. “No.”

Klaus gives the umbrella another quick spin. “You want to.”

“I do not.”

“Yes you do,” sweetly says Klaus. “You know you want to.”

“I am positive I don’t want to.”

Klaus laughs. “You dooooo!”

“No, no I don’t.” Ben takes another step back, trying to escape Klaus and his grip on the umbrella. Klaus lunges at Ben, and at the very last moment before the umbrella would have gone through his head, his brother ducks aside.

Perfect.

In mere seconds Ben is corporeal and the umbrella is being shaken, water droplets splattering straight onto Ben. Ben screeches and Klaus cackles, dropping the weapon and taking off in a dash for the front door.

Ben chases after Klaus. “Fuck you!”

“No thanks!” Klaus yells back over his shoulder.

Because he’s an asshole, but not _that_ much of an asshole, he keeps Ben corporeal and takes the slightly wet punch. Ben might think Klaus can’t see, but he’s definitely smiling. Worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sibling bonding fun times are good times


	6. Mannequin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> real girl dolores au! kind of

Dolores feels trapped in her own body. Or, well, what’s left of it. Not much, she thinks. Not much.

She’s never liked her stupid power. It tends to bring more harm than good, and she’s missing an arm to prove it. And now she’s lacking her legs, which normally are very much there. Could have been worse.

Or not, because she’s stuck in the end of the world, and not even stuck in her own self. She’s stuck in a shell of her being, a plastic cage that she can’t break out of no matter how hard she tries. Dolores has been a half grinning mannequin for who-knows-how-long, and frankly? She doesn’t know what to do.

Five coughs. He mutters something about all the ash. Dolores doesn’t have asthma, but if she did she’s sure she’d be in a great amount of pain right now.

And the fact that she’s a mannequin prevents her from getting dust into her lungs.

She wants to cry. She cannot. This is all a very bad situation to be in, she thinks. Keeps thinking. Five seems to think so too, from what he mumbles out loud.

Five Hargreeves. She’d never been much of an Umbrella Academy fan, old enough to consume it only after it all died down. She knows the basics, though. The fifth Hargreeves, gone missing at thirteen.

To here, evidently. He’s her age.

Dolores figures out she can talk to him relatively quickly. She doesn’t know how, but most of the work seems to be done on her end. It happens one night when Five sits down on the ground next to where he’s placed her and starts rambling about his family.

Dolores is an only child. Was an only child. She takes what would have been a deep breath and thinks at Five,_ I’m sorry._

Five laughs and wipes at his dampening eyes. “What are you sorry for?”

Dolores stops, pauses, freezes, and realizes he heard her. Five heard her, a lifeless mannequin trapped inside of her own mind. She thinks again._ I’m sorry you lost them._

“Thanks,” Five sniffs. “I miss them. They’re all assholes, but I miss them.”

_I’m sorry,_ repeats Dolores._ I’m sorry._

“Don't be,” says Five. “There’s nothing you can do.”

She’s silent. Five’s tears dry out.

It continues, Five talking to Dolores, but less _to_ more _at_, and Dolores trying to say something back. It doesn’t always work, not by a long shot. But sometimes she gets through, however she’s doing it, and Five looks at her with a little bit of intrigue and a lot of gratitude. He asks her name. She tells him.

Then Five gets sick, which is. Not good. Not good at all. He has a fever, and he’s sweating way too much for the amount of water he has right now. Has had for a while.

He might die, but Dolores isn’t thinking about that.

Five’s head lolls until his eyes land on her. “Hey.”

His breathing is shallow.

“I know you’re in there, Dolores.”

She doesn’t answer. Not right now, not today, not. The thoughts are stuck in her head.

“You’re real, right? I know it. I can’t just be talking to myself. You’re real.” Five hiccups, and suddenly his eyes look much wetter than seconds ago. “You have to be. You’re there, right? Can you tell me you’re there, Dolores?”

She can’t, she can’t, she can’t.

He laughs, except all Dolores hears is a sob. “Please tell me you’re there.”

And she almost manages, but then the Thinks, as she’s decided to call them, switch off and don’t reach Five at all. He sobs again. “_Fuck_.” He starts crying louder, not bothering to hold himself back. There’s nobody there to hear him.

Five spends the next two days getting over his illness. Next time Five talks to her, Dolores gives him one-word answers. She can’t manage anything more yet, but it’s better than nothing, right?

They don’t speak of the breakdown again. 


	7. Needles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings for needles and a post-death description/death mention

_Rapid tapping of fingers typing in letters and numbers. File found. Playback ready. Click: “play.” Black and white images moving in the wrong direction. Scroll back. Rewind. A bit further- Here. Click: “play.” The video starts moving._

Ben curls up on his bed, arms wrapped around his stomach. His cheeks are stained with his tears, bits of wet residing in the folds of his face. Today is a night that follows special training, and these nights always end like this. Ben curls tighter. If he wraps himself up tight enough, what is inside him will disappear.

Wishful thinking.

His stomach throbs. Ben bites down on his lip, hard, to hold back a whimper. It hurts. He feels like his own body is eating him alive. Like sharp objects are being hammered into his abdomen.

He feels like he’s being threaded by needles made for a horse.

_Pause. The image freezes, static running up and down the monitor. More tapping. Scroll through. New image, new person. Click: “play.”_

Diego shudders in the chair, fighting himself to not squeeze his eyes shut. Dad is standing over him, watching his every movement with cold eyes. The man with the tattoo gun in hunched over Diego’s forearm.

Diego takes a shaky breath. The needle pierces his skin over and over again. It hurts. His arm aches. Thank god he doesn’t have to be talking right now, or his stutter would be earning him a one-way ticket to extra hours in the tank.

He hates the tank. He fears the tank. He doesn’t want to be submerged in the cold water for hours on end again.

The needle pierces his skin a little deeper than the other punctures, and Diego clenches his fist. The muscles where a tattoo is being formed tighten and the pain amplifies.

Knowing he’s going to be punished for it later, Diego gives in and falls out of consciousness.

_Click: “stop playback.” Close file. Search. Folder found, clicked on. Opened. Pictures come into focus. Cursor hovers over the first one, clicks it. Full-screen._

Ben Hargreeves is in the middle of a room. Bodies are all around him, blood and entrails coating his skin, staining his uniform. Not all of them are foreign. Massive tentacles spill out from his stomach, grabbing and twisting and pulling at screaming adults. The origin’s mouth is open in a soundless shriek of agony.

_Click: “next.”_

Diego Hargreeves is in a chair, slumped over, hand still held out. Grace is standing with a needle in hand, her neatly manicured fingers gently holding her son’s wrist. She’s looking at Diego’s limp form with a mix of worry and sadness in her eyes, preparing to draw his blood for analysis.

_Click: “next.”_

A wide smear of blood on stone floor, the thinner smudges of blood near the edges already darkening as they dry. There is a near-shredded uniform blazer lying in the remains of what used to be a boy. The Umbrella Academy crest is visible. Ut Malum Pluvia.

_Click: “next.”_

Air bubbles escape the vague outline of a person underwater. A knife is gripped in one hand, and the other is reaching upwards, toward where the surface is. A mask is sinking next to the figure.

_Click: “escape.” Close folder. Search file. File found. View file? “Yes.” Raise volume. A messy audio clip sounds from the device._

“You’re scared of needles?”

“...Shut uh-up.”

“Are you?”

“I said, shut up!”

“I’m not making fun of you.”

“Yuh-yes you are. Everybody does.”

“Well, I’m not. I’m scared of them too.”

“Oh, yuh-yeah? You ever p-puh-pass out buh-because of them?”

“...Yeah.”

“St-stop lying.”

“I’m not. Mine are just different. I’m scared of my own needles. I’m not making fun of you, I promise.”

“Guh-get lost, Ben. I doh-don’t need you muh-mah-”

“...”

“Go away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“...”

“I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Mmh.”

_Pause. Exit. Search file. File-_

Glinting metal. Syringe. Bone. Flesh. Blood. Tears. Dark. Water. Choking. Panic. Blue. Green. Red. Wet. Suction. Rip. Tear. Needles. Prick. Faint. Sob. Weak. Needles dance across his skin.

_File-_

“Ben!”

“Diego, honey, look at me.”

“Gruesome but fascinating.”

“M-mom, I-”

“Drop dead.”

“HELP!”

“I heard a rumor-”

“Well, if you were smarter-”

“Stick him.”

“Am- Am I- Am I dead? Klaus, I can’t be dead, I can’t be, I _can’t_-”

“Why didn’t you wait? Eudora, why didn’t you wait!”

_Error. File corrupted. File unaccessible. File not found._

_Try again?_

_“No.”_

_Quit program?_

_“Yes.”_

_The screen is overcome with static._


	8. Eyeball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for mild gore and intrusive thoughts. (which entail blood, gore, and self-harming/self-destructive thoughts). additionally, suicidal thoughts/suicidal ideation (no actual suicide). possibly disassociation.

His coffee is sitting in front of him on the table, practically untouched. Five is leaning on his elbows, twirling the glass eye in his fingers. The glazed pupil stares at him. He wants to squeeze his fist tight enough to crack the glass.

He turns the brown iris away from himself and examines the serial number on the back. He doesn't need to, not really. He's memorized the string of digits decades ago. The eye is almost as much of a comfort as Dolores, with how long he's had it for. Longer than her, even.

_His feet make no sound against the ground as he stumbles to the hand sticking out of the rubble. The ash is already falling on him, flakes of dry, burnt material fluttering down on his uniform from the sky. It sets on his nose, threatening to inch into his eyes and leave him blind, gasping in pain._

_The bloody and burnt hand is clenching something between its fingers. Five takes another unsteady step towards it, letting his eyes trace over the wide blunt fingernails and bloodstained skin of the limb. There is ash settling in the creases of flesh._

_He pries open the literal death grip, and is left with a prosthetic eye in his hand, still wet with blood._

_In a second he will find a tattoo on a body that once belonged to his brother. The ash falls._

"What's up with him?"

Five keeps twisting the eye this way and that. He throws it up into the air, barely two inches, and catches it again. He wants to rip out his own eye and put the fake into the socket, see if it'll fit.

_The eye slips from his fingers and it's like everything slows down. The eye falls through the air, landing on the ground with a plink. Five screams._

_He falls to his knees, shaking hands not hesitating to start looking through the infertile dirt. His fingers brush a smooth surface._

_He grabs onto the eye and presses it towards his chest. Five sobs._

"Hell if I know. Five, you in there?"

He wants to set it down, but then it would roll away and disappear over the edge of the table, shattering on the floor. Five has gone to hell and back for this eye. He has endured hands on his shoulders and hands around his throat and his own hands itching grooves into his skin. He isn’t giving this up. Not now, not yet, not ever.

_The Handler grins at him and gives his forearm a quick squeeze, something sinister in her gaze. The glass in his suit pocket feels warmer._

“Five.”

He could die. He could die right now, just take his neck in his hands and squeeze the life out of himself. He could take a butterknife and plunge it into the back of his head, leaving it there and adding another. He could take a gun and press it against his stomach. He could do so, so many things. There are at least three objects in his line of vision right now that he could use to kill himself with.

_“Don’t you fucking dare,” says Dolores. “Don’t. Fucking- Fuck. Five, get down. Get down, right now. I swear, Five-”_

_He stands on the ledge a bit longer, teetering in the wind, and only after she starts crying does he climb down from the jagged cliff of architectural remains._

“Five!”

His scars itch. His mind burns.

Somebody puts a hand on his shoulder. Five flinches, squeezing his fist tight. The glass eye slips from his fingers and falls into his mug, sending coffee splattering onto his shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so im just gonna say real quick: no need to check in with me or anything like that, i'm fine, life just sucks sometimes and i needed to project a bit. i'm okay. this got a bit darker that i'd planned, but it's fine, and i'm fine, i swear


	9. Dancing

Eudora Patch is a horrible dancer, Diego finds out. He catches her once again, stopping her body from hitting the floor after she trips over her own feet for what’s gotta be the thousandth time. She looks at him with a slight pout and a childish anger on her face. He tries not to laugh.

“Stop it,” she says. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not,” he says through his laughter. “Promise.”

She swats at his arm, and just to fuck with her he releases his grip for half a second. She squeaks and grabs onto him even though his arms are already back on her waist. “Don’t do that!”

Diego laughs again. “Why not?”

“You’ll drop me! Are you _trying_ to give me a concussion?”

“You know if I was trying to do that you would have been in the hospital a while ago,” points out Diego. Eudora rolls her eyes, hands still in a vice grip on his upper arms.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Diego snorts and pulls her back up to her feet. She stumbles slightly from the sudden movement but quickly steadies herself. “Asshole.”

Diego ducks away from what would have been another whack at his arm. “Says you.”

“I do! This is a stupid idea anyway.”

She turns slightly, like she wants to leave the room, but Diego reaches out to take her wrist. “Hey, don’t be like that. Come on, you said you’d dance with me.”

She throws up her other hand, not freeing her wrist from his fingers. “I’m trying! I can’t dance, Diego, you know that.”

“Do you want me to like, deny that, or…?”

“You’re impossible.”

“Not gonna lie to you, Eudora, but your dancing could really use some improvement.” She opens her mouth to say something but he continues with, “That’s not the point though.”

“Oh, really? Then tell me, Diego, what is the point of dancing with you if I can’t dance?”

He shrugs and lifts Eudora’s hand over his head, spinning himself under it and coming out of the twirl to face her. “I wanted to do something fun with you.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Is this your weird way of flirting?”

He grins. “Maybe.”

Eudora sighs, flipping her ponytail from her shoulder to her back in one swift movement of her head. “Why did it have to be this though? Why dancing?”

Diego shrugs again. “It seemed like something you might like. Whatever, we can stop if you want to.”

Eudora bites her lip. “...Do you maybe want to just… Watch a movie?”

“That depends on how shitty the movie you choose will be.”

“The shittiest,” declares Eudora. “We can watch a shitty movie and do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day, and then you can show me how to dance the salsa tomorrow.”

Diego leans forward and plants a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “Deal,” he whispers against her skin. Eudora pulls his face to hers and kisses him again.

Later, when they’re sitting on the couch, “The Kissing Booth” playing, Diego leans his head on Eudora’s shoulder and whispers into her ear, “We were dancing the swing.”

She punches him, and this time, he doesn’t have time to scoot away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i haven't seen the kissing booth nor do i plan to, but from what ive heard its a shitty romcom which is good enough for me


	10. Pills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lmao i know nothing of withdrawal. warning for that and vomiting i guess

The pills don’t foam as they disappear down the drain of the sink. Vanya doesn’t know if she expected anything, maybe a slight fizzle or a bubbling noise. They’re silent, dissolving as they slide away into the sewers.

Vanya looks at her newly empty prescription bottle and tosses it into the trashcan under the sink. Klaus twitches as the plastic bottle hits the can, sending a dull thud through the room. She turns to find her brother fidgeting on the couch, eyes moving from her to the air to the floor and back to her.

“You did it?” he asks unnecessarily.

Vanya nods. She grabs a water bottle and throws it at Klaus, her brother catching it easily.

“Let’s get this show on the road.”

.

The next few days are absolute hell. It feels like most of her time is spent vomiting into the toilet, Klaus holding her hair back for her, or rubbing Klaus’ back as he takes his turn spilling his guts. Klaus keeps complaining about the withdrawal, either to her or to the ghosts.

After having to rinse her hair for the third time in a day - because while she appreciates her brother’s help, he’s not the best at making sure all of the strands are away from her face - Vanya gives up and sits in front of Klaus, twisting her hand over her head to hold a hair tie out to him.

“Braid my hair,” she says. “You’re good at it.”

“I doubt it,” Klaus says, already slipping the black band around his wrist and taking Vanya’s hair in his hands. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want anymore throw up to get in it.”

“I mean it,” she tells him. He starts separating her hair into sections. “But yeah, that too.”

Klaus snorts. He mutters to the air again out of the corner of his mouth and Vanya is almost certain somebody whispers back.

He ends up arranging her locks into a tight braid that holds back all of her hair, the end a bit messy where he got up to drink some tea in hopes of baiting back the puke. Vanya fiddles with the end of the braid and waits for the next wave of nausea to hit her.

.

Vanya has dark bags under her eyes. She reaches up to brush wispy flyaways from her forehead, meeting her reflection’s eyes. The cold white of her irises stares back judgementally. Vanya’s face is devoid of color.

Her hands clench on the walls of the sink basin. She leans forward, inexplicably drawn to the distorted Vanya in the mirror. Her reflection blinks as Vanya’s face comes closer.

Her grin is so sinister Vanya has to catch her breath, because she cannot believe her own face is capable of smiling like that. The woman in the mirror raises a ghastly white hand and writes on the inside of the wall between them, her fingers leaving white lines on the surface: “TWV.”

“T-W-V?” says Vanya out loud. “What does that mean?”

_“The White Violin,_” mouths her reflection.

“Who is that?” asks Vanya. “Is that you? Are you the… the White Violin?”

Everything screeches as Vanya’s reflection tears itself from the glass and shoves Vanya backward, sharp shards falling like rain over them. Her teeth are bared.

_“IT’S YOU!”_

Vanya wakes up with her hair stuck together with sweat.

.

Klaus groans from his place at the kitchen table. “This is taking foreverrrrr.”

Vanya raises an eyebrow. “How long have you been doing drugs, exactly?”

Klaus groans again and flaps his hand at her. “Fine. No need to rub it in, I’ll shut up.”

Vanya fondly rolls her eyes and turns to her mug of lavender tea. She takes a small sip, feeling the liquid travel down her throat. Klaus mutters something incomprehensible to the patch of space next to him, and Vanya decides that after days spent going through withdrawal with her brother, she’s allowed to ask.

“Who’re you talking to?”

Klaus hesitates. “...A ghost.”

“Well duh. What kind of ghost?”

Klaus barks a laugh. “A dead one, sister dear.”

Vanya reaches out and plants a light punch on his arm. “That’s not an answer and you know it.”

“Eh.” Klaus wiggles his hand in a “so-so” motion. Hello.

“Come on,” says Vanya. “Tell me.”

Klaus doesn’t say anything, so Vanya tilts back her mug to get the last bits of tea and stands up to put it in the sink. She accidentally drops it on her way there.

Klaus’ hands flash blue and so does the air around the mug, a figure briefly solidifying to catch it and then set it down on the floor before disappearing again. Vanya runs her hand through her hair and says, “There are too many goddamn people with blue powers in this family.”

She thinks she hears Ben laugh along with Klaus.


	11. Strength

Luther examines the tears and callouses on his hands. Dad doesn’t let him bandage them, saying that a little pain never killed anybody. The skin on his palms is rubbed raw in places from gripping metal bars to lift over his head and hold there.

He brushes his fingers over the pinkness and doesn’t wince at the slight sting that resonates through his arm. Pain is just a part of life, and reacting to it is a weakness.

Luther sometimes thinks that he’s lost pounds of skin just from the flats of his hands. He almost - almost - feels bad for himself, but then he sees Diego with his aching wrists and bleeding fingers, Allison with her sore throat, Klaus and Ben with their half-hidden shudders and nightly tears, Five hunched over the toilet bowl throwing up today’s breakfast and Vanya watching it all from the corner of the room and thinks no, no, he doesn’t have it as bad as them. All he has is pink hands that sometimes bleed if he’s not being careful.

He knows all of their training is for their own good, to make them stronger and more resilient, more in control of their powers. He knows this, but sometimes he catches himself thinking that maybe it would be nice if Dad lowered the amount of reps he had to do, or how often he had to them. Maybe it would help if Klaus didn’t disappear to special training so often, or if Allison was allowed to take breaks when her throat hurt too bad.

They’re silly thoughts that get brushed aside, because without all of this, how would Luther be strong? How would any of them be strong in what they do?

Strength is, well, a strength, and weakness is something he needs to avoid. They all need to avoid. Weakness in a team is like blood in shark-infested waters.

Luther drops his hands and goes to the bathroom to shower before bed.

.

He dreams of falcons and wolves. The animals swirl together in a sort of dance, one gliding through the air and the other bounding along the ground. Luther doesn’t know what they mean, but as soon as he approaches the two animals, the wolf leaps up to shatter the falcon’s wing.

When he wakes up, he remembers Klaus once said falcons and wolves in dreams stand for victory and loyalty respectively.  
.

His arms are limp at his sides, his legs barely supporting his weight. He can’t clench his fingers. Dad hits the ground with his cane and Luther wishes for something he doesn’t know.

.

Years later he wakes up, and wishes he hadn’t.

.

** _Comet_ **

I wait on the surface  
Of the grey rock  
That orbits my home

If I look out  
I can see the Earth  
And each time I think:  
“How are you?”

The chunk of ice and space dust  
Races by  
Without pause  
It has no time for things like me  
Who have to breathe air to live

I don’t know  
If I have time  
For things like me

I watch the comet fly  
And I wonder  
What it would be like  
<strike>To be just as free</strike>  
To go just as fast

-1  
(Please remember to send food. Rations are running low.)


	12. Knives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for mentions of self-destructive tendencies that can also be read as unhealthy coping mechanisms

Diego sharpens a knife and shoves all of his thoughts into a padlocked box, kicking it into the corners of his mind.

The monotone scraping noise that sounds from his hands echoes in his head for days on end.

Diego flips a blade in his hand, catching it as it comes down and allowing the sharp edge to slice the top layer of skin on his palm. Eudora calls it self-destructive tendencies. Diego calls it trying to feel alive. Klaus is the one with self-destructive tendencies. Or maybe his are addictive, and Eudora is right.

He doesn’t let himself think of things when old reruns of TV show episodes which Five guest-starred in play. It’s better to remain silent and solid grey than fade to translucent blue like his brothers had.

Ben used to say something every time they snuck out to Griddy’s or to the roof. He’d look up at the night sky and chant, “star light, star bright, first star I see tonight.” Diego can’t remember what comes next. Another string of words that used to be important, lost.

There’s barely any light, but the little amount of yellow flecks reflect off Diego’s blade and toss themselves around the room.

If he’s careless enough with the sharp edges, he’ll wind up with a bleeding slice in his skin. Diego tosses the knife a little higher and keeps his grip a little too loose.

Diego has been sharpening his knives for what feels like forever. He can’t remember a day when he didn’t take a minute to brush his fingers over the smooth surface of a knife.

Diego moves out when he’s seventeen. It’s the year where so many things happen. Klaus leaves too. Allison. Vanya enrolls in a music school. Diego gets accepted into the police academy.

And Ben dies, and Diego sharpens his knives with tears he can’t feel sliding down his cheeks.


	13. Rumor

It’s kind of like taking off a pair of stilettos, Allison thinks. She can hold out for a long time with them on, but as soon as they get kicked off? Instant relief. That’s what it feels like when she rumors.

Rumoring is freeing. She can do without it, of course, but it’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous how hard it is to keep her mouth shut and not say those four words. “I heard a rumor.” Ha. She’d rather go for “stop talking, Allison.”

When she was younger, she didn’t get it. It was drilled into her head that rumoring is an asset that should be exercised, and so she did what she was told and used it. On friends, on foes, on criminals and innocents, it didn’t matter. She spoke so much her throat grew sore and watched so many eyes flash white she started hallucinating them where there were black pupils and colored irises.

Allison is a star. A celebrity. But even they take off their heels at times. And Allison finds that keeping hers on is getting harder and harder.

She has to, though. She has to.

“Mommy?”

Allison looks down at Claire pulling on her sleeve. She smiles at her daughter and bends down to pick herup and hoist her into her arms.

“What is it, honey?”

Claire giggles and reaches out to tug on Allison’s hair. Allison gently reaches out and frees her curls from Claire’s little fist. “Mommy, come play with me!”

Allison throws a glance at the paperwork she’s supposed to be reading over. “...I can’t right now, I’m sorry honey. Why don’t you go find Daddy and ask him?”

“Daddy said to ask you,” replies Claire. “Mommy, please?”

“No, Claire. Go on, I’m sure Daddy would like to play with you.”

“But I wanna play with _you_!” Claire scrunches up her nose, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

“Claire, I’m sorry. Come on, you can have fun without me.”

“No! I want you to play with me!” Claire’s voice rises. Her little feet kick at Allison’s stomach.

“Claire, I said not now.”

“NO!”

Allison opens her mouth.

Claire’s eyes are such a beautiful brown.

Allison tastes blood as her teeth clamp down on her tongue. Claire keeps crying. She carries her daughter out of the room and hands her over to Patrick, apologizing and telling him that she’s sorry, but she really needs to finish this paperwork. He understands, of course. When does he not?

Allison thinks that she would rather have blisters on her feet than see Claire’s eyes go blank.

.

She loses custody.


	14. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'M FUCKING SOBBING

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for blood, death, all that good sad shit that made me cry writing this

Eudora Patch comes to discover, she isn't bulletproof. She knew that before, of course. Nobody is.

(There was once a boy on the news. He had been shot, point-blank. He barely even flinched when he hit the gun out of the man's hands. Eudora remembers seeing the boy's bloodsoaked blazer with bad Latin on the emblem, and thinking, this is unreal. Luther Hargreeves was fine then, and the next time he appeared on TV, you couldn't even see a scar. It was almost like the bullet missed him entirely.)

Nobody is bulletproof. Maybe emotionally, Eudora comes close.

She remembers harsh words spat in the heat of the moment and angry yelling echoing in her ears. She thinks of all the times she's wiped away hot tears with her fists and how many times she shut him up with her mouth, unwilling to talk any longer. Yeah, it's a lie, she decides. She's very much susceptible to emotional bullets.

Also to literal bullets. The pain in her chest blooms. Her shirt is going to stain so bad, she thinks as a gasp tears itself from her throat and she falls forward. She barely feels it when her head hits the floor.

Footsteps cross the room, and Eudora's eyes sluggishly follow the polished black shoes. They disappear behind her, and Eudora can’t move. The bleeding man who is also a hostage who has clearly been through some shit in the past however long, who is also Diego’s brother, who is also a mess right now, is gone.

Eudora stills and lets her eyes close.

Once they open again, she’s standing in the mess that is her own chest. Eudora steps out of the blood and sees that her shoes are unstained. She has to catch herself from falling through the floor.

“Klaus?”

Eudora turns and Diego’s standing in the doorway. He’s frozen, and Eudora’s body is on the floor soaking in a pool of blood, and Diego is looking straight at it. And Eudora is looking at Diego, and he’s not looking at her, just at the body on the ground, just at the red coloring the carpet, just. At. Her. Dead. Self.

His mouth is slightly open in shock and his grip on his knife loosens. The blade falls silently to the ground, and Diego doesn’t seem to care as he moves to her body, ripping off his stupid bondage gloves and saying, “No, no, no! Eudora! No, no no!”

“I’m right here,” Eudora tries to say as Diego keeps saying her name. “I’m right here!” She’s not, she isn’t, he crouches over her body and rolls her over. Her face is placid and blank and her eyes are closed and Eudora looks at herself, dead on the floor with Diego bent over her, hands shaking.

He’s still chanting it, a string of “no”s echoing in the small hotel room. Diego’s face screws up and his eyes drip tears and he jerks, suddenly slamming his fist against the ground.

He sobs and his tears fall onto Eudora’s already wet shirt and she chokes back a sob too. “Diego,” she says hopelessly. “Diego, Diego I’m here, Diego please-”

Diego cries without hiding it and Eudora thinks that she hasn’t seen him do that in a long time. He cups her face and brushes her hair away from her forehead, and Eudora raises her hand to his own short hair.

“I was on my way,” he whispers, short, angry, despaired. “I was- Why didn’t you wait?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Sirens sound. Diego looks back at the flashing lights and sobs again.

“I gotta go, okay? I can’t be here when they come, okay?”

“Okay,” Eudora cries. “Okay.”

Diego says nothing else, and his shaky hands move away from her face and to his sides and he stands up and grabs his gloves and knife and then a receipt off of an empty tissue box. He looks at Eudora’s body one more time and disappears in the doorway without seeing Eudora at all.

She’s a ghost, and so she fades.


	15. Time Travel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> its late i know shush
> 
> warning for vomiting

Five stumbles out into the past, letting go of Allison and Diego’s hands. His own go to his stomach, and he turns away from his slightly unsteady siblings, and throws up.

Shit.

He thinks he hears somebody yell something and feels a hand go to his back, rubbing circles almost instantaneously. Five tries to force down his last meal, but he doubles over again.

“Is he okay?” somebody says frantically. “I- I mean, is this something that should be happening? Do we need an ambulance?”

Five tries to laugh, and chokes on his vomit, because no, no no no. This isn’t okay at all, and he can already see blood mixing with bile and stomach acid. Fuck.

He doesn’t hear what happens next.

.

Five wakes up dizzy and with a burning in his throat. It must be from the puke, he reasons, because he only ever feels like this after jumping again and again and again and then collapsing over the spotless toilet bowls of the mansion. Or the Commission headquarters? Or are the toilets usually dirty hotel ones? He tries to think, but he doesn’t know.

“Hey, short stack,” says Klaus. Five looks at him. His eyes are wide and a little bit wild, his face pale and scared. He’s wringing his hands, staring at Five with… something. Five looks at Klaus, takes in the facial cues, and concludes: he’s dead.

He knew this would happen eventually. No great loss.

Klaus also looks thirteen (like Five! Thirteen for the rest of forever, what a drag), and now that Five lets his eyes roam behind his brother’s pale visage he notices that other children are in the room. Five more thirteen-year-olds are hovering behind Klaus, anxious and anticipating. Only Vanya is missing, but last Five saw her she was unconscious in Luther’s arms, so. That’s fair.

He tries to sit up, but he can’t move. Klaus seems to notice.

“Yeah, you won’t be up and running for another while. You almost died on us, little man. I mean, understandable, considering. Well, _time travel_, but don’t do that again.”

Five nods and immediately winces when the motion sends a stabbing pain through his head. “How long?” he croaks.

“How long what?” Ben asks, and oh, if Ben is also dead, it makes sense why he can see Five too.

“How long have I been dead?”

Silence washes over the room. Five's eyes drift from face to face, watching them startle and bite their lips and throw glances at each other. He blinks.

“You’re not dead.” Diego’s voice sounds slightly shaky.

Five looks at him too, stares at all of them and watches them stare back. No. No, it can’t be. He couldn’t’ve-

Five’s mouth lets out a sob. Klaus leans in fast, hands awkwardly hovering over Five, not quite touching him. “Hey, hey, no, don’t cry, Five, are you okay?”

Five sobs again and wipes at his teary eyes. “I killed you!”

Klaus blinks. “What?”

“I killed you! You’re dead because of me, I killed you, it’s all my fault!” The tears keep coming, and Five wonders why his eyes itch so bad if he’s dead. He’s dead, and his siblings are dead, and it’s all his fault.

“Five, Five, hey, no.” Allison’s hands set on his shoulders. “Five, look at me. You’re alive, Five. You’re alive, we’re alive, you didn’t kill us.”

“You saved us,” adds Luther. “You saved us.”

“Yeah, you did,” Allison agrees. “We’re all okay because of you. You’re not dead.”

Five has seen too many hallucinations in his life to believe her. He closes his eyes and keeps them closed, and with thoughts of rotting corpses (god, he can still _smell_ the _dirty decaying bodies_) plaguing his mind, he lets himself be pulled under.


	16. Tentacles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...warnings for blood and everything else you would expect from an eldritch tentacle monster.

“It’s like a heavenly choir,” is the thought that pops into Ben’s head as his stomach rips open for the first time in years. “A heavenly choir of carnage and nothing like heaven at all.”

A choir it is indeed, with ghosts wailing and the cracking and tearing noises of flesh being ripped apart and then tossed aside, Ben in the center of it all, screaming. He feels the thick tentacles slide out of his stomach. It’s like it’s happening slowly, almost. He can feel every inch, every slight wiggle and slide of flesh against flesh. The suction cups brush against the lip of the tear in his abdomen, and it feels unnatural and unusual, and Ben is not used to this anymore.

It happens much faster than it seems to him. In less than a second, Ben’s stomach is a hole and the Horror is spilling out and lifting figures off of the ground. Ben’s scream grows louder as over his head an assassin is ripped in half, raining blood down on Ben.

It doesn’t even hurt. Or, it does, but not as much as it did when he was alive. Or maybe he’s wrong. He hasn’t been alive or pulled forward the Horror for so long.

Speaking of, he stumbles under the weight of the extra appendages. They’re heavy, forcing him to bend down slightly and widen his stance as to not fall over. He’d slip in the pool of blood forming by his feet. If he slips the assassin currently being choked out twelve feet in the air would fall back to the floor. Ben doesn’t slip.

He closes his mouth after realizing the howl that came from his throat has stopped. Klaus waves at him to cut scene - as he used to put it - and Ben unclenches his muscles. The tentacles fall to the ground limply. The reluctantly slither back into Ben’s body, and it’s so, so terrifying to watch them disappear in the temporary cavity gaping against the pale of his stomach. There are stretch marks crossing his skin.

Ben gags as the last beastly limb disappears into him. He drops his hoodie. The air brushes up against his innards. It always takes a while for the portal to seal up again, but hey, he’s dead. What does it matter?

Ben turns and thinks that this performance isn’t over yet. He hopes one of Vanya’s violin strings will snap in the middle of an arpeggio.


	17. Violin

Vanya’s tuning her violin when Diego bursts into her room. She almost drops the instrument. Diego throws a quick glance at her fingers plucking the strings and nods decisively, moving towards her and taking her arm. “Keep the fiddle,” he says already dragging her out of her room.

“It’s not a fiddle,” Vanya protests. “Where are we going? I was in the middle of practicing.”

“The fiddle and the violin are the exact same instrument,” says Diego. He’s walking down the stairs, grip still firm on her forearm. Vanya’s other hand is pressing her violin close to her. “The name just depends on what kind of music you play.”

Vanya thinks back to a little boy who she’d taught for a while. He used to spout fun facts whenever he wasn’t playing, rambling on and on about music and composers and space and did you know that Beethoven was deaf? Diego’s right, the violin and fiddle are one and the same.

“How do you know that?”

He glances back at her. Vanya stumbles. Doesn’t quite fall because Diego rights her again. “I know things, contrary to popular opinion.”

“Nobody said you didn’t.”

Diego rolls his eyes, and without a hint of malice says, “The first day Five came back he immediately called me an idiot.”

“That’s not fair,” argues Vanya. “Five is just like that. Besides, he’s getting better at his people skills now.”

Diego snorts. “Tell that to the guy he nearly decapitated last week.”

Vanya tilts her head in acceptance. “That’s fair. So where are you dragging me?”

Diego grins. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I would.”

“It’s a surprise.”

Vanya sighs. “Can I at least put my violin back?”

Diego shakes his head. They’re off the stairs now, walking through the hallways of the ground floor. “You’re gonna need it.”

Vanya looks down at her violin awkwardly clutched in one hand and her bow held in the other. Diego is still firmly gripping her forearm. She tightens her fingers on the wood of the fingerboard.

“Here,” her brother says as they stop in front of the door to the courtyard. “Get ready.”

“What?”

He pushes open the door, finally letting go of her arm.

Vanya flinches back because- It’s so loud. Not noise-loud, but just… loud. The scene itself is loud.

“Oh!” yells Klaus. “Guys, Vanya’s here!”

“Did she bring the violin?” Ben’s head pops up from behind… A piano? Why do they have a piano? Where did the piano come from?

“Yep,” says Diego.

“Oh, sweet!” Ben cheers. “Five, look! Vanya’s here!”

“I know, dipshit,” Five says. “I’m literally right here, I can hear what you’re saying.”

Vanya looks around, but with the grand piano and the trombone case and music stands, along with chairs arranged in a half-circle and a drum kit, she can’t see Five. There’s a cord trailing from a set of speakers back to the house, and she carefully steps over it. “Where _is_ Five?”

“I’m right here,” he calls again. Vanya swivels her head, but still can’t see. “Here. Vanya.”

“He’s in the piano,” Diego says.

“I’m in the piano,” agrees Five. “It’s kinda nice.”

Vanya audibly inhales through her nose. “You can’t- you can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Five says from _inside the piano_. “I mean, I fit alright. It’s a bit cozy but I can jump out just fine. The strings are cool. I didn’t know there were so many.”

“Yeah you did,” counters Ben. “You’ve watched the inside while I played before.”

Vanya can picture Five shrugging. “I guess. Huh.”

“Get out of the piano, Five.” She bites her lip, eyeing the body of the instrument. It looks like Five is somewhere in the center. The lid is open, but she can’t see any part of him peeking out. “You’re going to break it.”

“But-”

“Get out.”

There’s a sigh from Five and a mumble of “it was just getting good” from Klaus, and then Five is standing in front of the piano, slightly disheveled. He brushes off his button-up, smoothing the creases. “Killjoy.”

“I’m not a killjoy,” Vanya says. “I just don’t want you to ruin an expensive instrument. Whose money did you buy that with anyway?”

“Dad’s,” Ben pipes up. “Not like he needs it anymore anyway, and I needed a piano.”

“You didn’t need anything. You were playing the keyboard just fine.”

“Shut up, Diego.”

Diego shrugs. “Just saying.”

“It’s not the same,” says Ben. “Keyboard just… Doesn’t cut it. Piano reigns supreme.”

“Whatever you say, Benny,” Klaus says, breaking his previous silence. “We all know that the true superior instrument is the-” He cuts himself off to cough into his fist and then to raise it to the sky in a cruddy imitation of an opera singer. “-_voice_.” He sings the last word in a wobbly falsetto. Vanya resists the urge to slam her hands against her ears.

“Why is all this stuff out here anyway?” she asks.

“What stuff?” Luther says as he appears from the doorway. “Oh. Like, everything?”

“Yeah.”

He shrugs. “Family Bonding Fun Time.”

“What?”

“Klaus’ words, not mine,” he tells her. “Besides, it’s kind of accurate.”

Klaus whoops. “Hell yeah it is! We’re a family! We’re gonna bond! And have some fucking fun!”

“Do you have to shout so early in the morning?”

“It’s like, one in the afternoon,” Diego corrects Five.

“Still too early.”

Klaus shrugs one shoulder, his scarf falling off of it in the process. “Sorry.”

“Whatever.”

There’s a loud screech of feedback from Luther’s direction. He’s crouched over the speakers which are now plugged in apparently, tapping the mic. “My bad,” he says. “It all works fine though.”

Klaus cheers. Ben gives an enthusiastic wave. Diego does weak jazz hands. Five only snorts and rolls his eyes, not even bothering to conceal the fondness behind the gesture.

“Where’s Allison?” Vanya asks. Luther throws a glance to where he came from.

“She’s coming,” he says. “Mom is too, they just needed to finish some stuff.”

“Stuff?”

Luther shrugs. “I don’t know. Ask them.”

“Mom was making sandwiches,” Diego says.

“You shouldn’t play an instrument and eat at the same time,” points out Ben. “It’ll get food inside it.”

“Yeah,” agrees Luther. “Food inside a trombone is… gross.”

Five, their resident clarinet player, nods sagely.

“Well, they should be done soon,” says Klaus. “We need them here for our band.”

“Band? It’s a band now?” Vanya says with curiosity.

“Family Bonding Fun Time,” corrects himself Klaus. “Which happens to be a band.”

“Fair enough.”

Allison chooses this moment to appear with Mom, each one carrying a platter. Mom’s carrying two, one in each hand, because… she’s Mom. Vanya doesn’t think she’ll ever run out of impressive things she can do. Allison is smiling.

“Food’s here!” she calls even though everybody knows.

“And then band time,” says Five. “I wanna honk a high G.”

“Please don’t,” says Vanya.

He shrugs as if to say, _no_ _promises_.

They eat sandwiches. Vanya’s has cucumbers and mayonnaise, and she chews it with a smile. Then they’re all finished, and sit themselves in the chairs around the speakers. Vanya is standing next to the electronics, violin at ready position and bow hovering just above the strings.

Luther presses a button on the speakers and a simple beat sounds. Vanya plays.

It’s really loud. Five is honking his high notes and Luther is blasting his low ones on the trombone, and Ben is playing one glissando after another. Diego is plucking away at his guitar strings and Klaus is singing, still falsetto. Mom is smiling, swaying to the rhythm of the music. Allison can’t play an instrument so she’s dancing to the side next to Mom.

Vanya can hear so much noise, all of it scraping at her ears and making her glow a little bit. Her violin feels warm in her hands. She smiles and looks at her family fully engaged is Family Bonding Fun Time, and thinks that she wouldn’t trade this for anything.


	18. The 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings for the handler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was one of my favorite prompts to write, and even though the part i was so pumped about took up like 90 words but still!!

Dolores prefers not to think about her life story. Of course, it’s inevitable, but. She’d rather not think about the seventeen-year gap in her memory. She’d rather avoid the suffocating feeling of being forced into the form of a wooden carving and the choking sensation of not being able to escape.

She’d really, really rather not think about it, but. Here she is. Dolores mentally shudders at how unfairly similar her situation is to the one she found herself at six years old.

Dolores has been stuck in the mannequin form for about a week now. Thankfully, this time she can see and hear. And think. Oh, thank god that she can think. She can’t turn back though.

The ash falls. Dolores would wrinkle her nose, but. Well.

Dolores is frozen in the bent red wagon Five totes her around in. She always wishes that she could just _change_ _back_, because then at least he wouldn’t have to carry her anymore. She hasn’t succeeded in gaining back her body yet.

Five talks to her. She doesn’t know why, because for all he knows, she’s just a slightly charred mannequin. He’s probably trying to keep himself sane in any little way he can. Dolores is glad, though. She can never respond, but the illusion of talking to somebody is strangely comforting.

“You know, Dolores,” says Five conversationally, “I’m really glad you’re here.”

_Me too_, thinks Dolores. _Me too._

Five goes to sleep that night, and the stars are hidden by ash as they have been since everything burnt. Dolores was asleep when it all happened, and when she woke up she was… A mannequin.

Yay, reflexes. Would be extremely helpful if they also allowed her to switch back.

Dolores falls asleep (or as close as she can get to it) that night with a strong taste of _want_ on her tongue.

When she wakes up, Five is yelling.

She wrinkles her nose. It’s too early for this kind of stuff. Why is he yelling? There’s nobody around to hear him.

“Oh my god,” he’s saying. “Oh my god, oh my god!”

“Jesus,” she groans. “Quiet down, will you!”

Wait.

Groans? Since when? Her mouth is sealed shut! Dolores blinks open her eyes.

She’s laying down on the rocks where she let go of consciousness last night. Her legs are sprawled out on the stone at an awkward angle. Her arm aches.

What the fuck.

Dolores sits up and meets Five’s eyes. They’re wide on his face, his hands shaking as they press against his mouth. He stumbles forward and presses one of them to her shoulder. She notes that she’s wearing the same patterned shirt she was before the end of the world. Her pants are also on her, thank god.

“You’re real,” Five stutters out. “You- You're- How?”

Dolores shrugs. “Same as you, I guess. Superpowers.”

Five sobs and chokes on it. His hands shake harder. “You’re real,” he says again. “You’re real, you’re real, you’re-”

Dolores recognizes this for what it is, and takes his hand. “I am,” she says. “I am. Deep breaths, Five. Deep breaths. Like this, see?” She inhales deeply and Five shakily copies her.

Dolores explains everything to Five once he’s calmed down. He starts crying again, but this time it’s more relief than panic. He’s not alone anymore.

When he’s done panicking and she’s done talking, she rolls her eyes and says, “I can’t _believe_ all it took was to believe in myself, or whatever. Fake it ‘til you make it is right, I guess.”

Five laughs.

Days go by. But now it’s not Five and Dolores the Mannequin, it’s just Five and Dolores. Dolores tells him about how she lost her arm. He talks to her about his family. They train her powers, best they can. She doesn’t ever transform into inhuman objects again. Always something humanoid. A little doll made of wood. Her first mannequin form.

Two years come and go.

Dolores and Five are talking and he’s writing down equations, her checking over his work. He made a dumb mistake a month or two ago, one that would have pushed back the final product by years. She’d fixed it for him, and then made fun of him for days.

There are footsteps. Five grabs the gun he has, and Dolores thinks that it was never needed before. A woman in black walks up to them. Just before she’s seen, Dolores shifts. Five is holding a wooden mannequin, meant for drawing. He pockets her discreetly.

The woman offers him a deal. Five accepts. Dolores does too, silently. She doesn’t think the Handler knows she’s there.

Five is fifteen, working as an assassin. You do what you have to, he tells Dolores. And this is what they have to do, now.

Nobody in the Commission questions why Number Five always has a little dancing figure pinned on his lapel.

Until.

There comes a day, about a year after Five is hired. He figures out the last number, the last equation. Dolores cheers as Five grins and says as soon as the moment is right, they’re going home.

Home. What a funny place that is.

Dolores doesn’t like the Handler. She touches Five a little too much for it to be normal. She doesn’t know if he’s aware of this, because god knows there was never an actual _normal_ adult in his life, but he always looks uncomfortable when the woman brushes her hands across his shoulders.

Today she takes it too far.

The Handler takes Five’s face in his hands, and Dolores has stayed silent for this long. Not anymore. She shoves herself back into her body, and gracefully lnads on the floor, shoving the Handler away from Five.

“What-” Is all the woman has a chance to say before Dolores’ fist is flying at her face. Her knuckles collide with the Handler’s cheek and she hears a sort of _crunch_. She winces.

Before the Handler can regain he bearings, Dolores is grabbing onto Five’s hand and sprinting.

“What the fuck?” he yells. “That was awesome!”

“Thanks!” she calls back. “You have the math ready, right?”

“Of course!”

“On three?”

“On three!”

They shout out the numbers, _one two three_, and then Five clenches his fists and they’re gone in blue.

Dolores and Five tumble out into twenty-nineteen again laughing, both of them about three years younger than they last were. Dolores wheezes.

“That bitch- Did you see her face?”

“Oh my god,” cackles Five. “You-!”

“I just! I decked her!”

“You _decked_ her!” Five repeats.

They laugh some more, and then Five says, “Holy crap, I think I might be in love with you.”

They’ve exchanged “I love you”s before, but never like this. Dolores grins at Five and takes his hand. “Come on. Let’s go save the fucking world.”

Elsewhere, the Handler slowly raises her hand to her cheek, shocked.

.

Forty-three children were born October first, nineteen eighty-nine. Seven were adopted by eccentric billionaire and adventurer Reginald Hargreeves. Thirty-six were left alone.

Dolores is one of the thirty-six. Five is one of the seven. They’re both part of the forty-three.


	19. Donuts

Agnes can't quite put her finger on it, but there's something about the boy that seems familiar.

"Can I get the kid a glass of milk, or something?" she asks his father. The boy says:

"The kid wants coffee. Black." She looks at him in surprise, and he smiles, strained and fake.

Agnes blinks. The kid keeps grinning. She chuckles awkwardly.

"Cute kid."


	20. Addiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> drug warning lmao

The first thing he notices when he wakes up is, it’s so _quiet_. He doesn’t hear anything except his own thoughts and the rain falling on the sidewalk. Klaus is cold, the chill from the ground seeping into his limbs.

He stretches his arms over his head, relishing in the satisfying pop that sounds from his elbows. “Finally,” says Ben. “I was getting worried you wouldn’t wake up.”

Klaus flaps his hand dismissively in his brother’s direction. “No need to worry, Benny-boy. You know I always do.”

Ben sighs and rolls his eyes, pocketing the book he was evidently reading before Klaus returned to the land of the living. “Don’t call me that. Have you ever thought about-”

“Yeah, yeah,” cuts in Klaus. “Quit drugs, get sober, get my shit together. You need new material, dude.”

“-about how one of these days, you might not?”

Klaus blinks. “What?”

“This shit’s gonna kill you, Klaus. You can only have so much luck. I can't-”

Klaus snorts. “There you go, playing the dead card. Grow up, Ben. Let me have my fun, and I’ll let you have yours.”

“My ‘fun’ consists of making sure you aren’t killed, Klaus.”

“So? Seems fun enough to me.”

“_Klaus_.”

“What? Just chill out, Ben. I’m not going to fucking die from some coke.”

Ben mumbles something about Coca-Cola that Klaus doesn’t bother to decipher and turns away. Klaus rolls his eyes. Whatever.

It takes some digging, but in the deep corner of his coat pocket, Klaus finds a joint. It’s just weed, nothing strong. Nothing as strong as he needs right now, at least. He shrugs. The comedown jitters are already beginning, so he’ll take what he’s got.

“Don’t,” says Ben as Klaus flicks the lighter. “Seriously, don’t, you just woke up after taking a fuckton of coke-”

“Oh, fuck off,” says Klaus for what feels like the twentieth time.

“Klaus, I’m not kidding, that’s-”

“Ugh, are you deaf as well as dead now, Benny? I said, _fuck off_.”

Ben shuts up, and Klaus pointedly doesn’t acknowledge the broken look on his brother’s face as he lights the joint and brings it up to his lips. He inhales and doesn’t flinch at the smoke invading his lungs.

Addiction, addiction. Oh, what he wouldn’t do to feed it.

Contrary to Ben’s words, Klaus doesn’t find himself to be very lucky.


	21. Power Swap

In another universe, Luther thinks as he stares blankly up at the ceiling. In another universe, maybe it’s all different.

Maybe Luther is never born with his strength there. Maybe he never breaks any fingers of innocent nannies, maybe he doesn’t lose control and punch his brother so hard he near-shatters his sternum.

Maybe Luther leaves. Maybe he gets up and follows one of his siblings, letting them guide him into the world behind the fences of the mansion. Luther tries to swallow the bitter taste from his mouth. He feels something begin to settle in the back of his throat.

Maybe. Maybe there’s a world where Luther was never taken in by Dad. Maybe there’s a world where it wasn’t necessary to take him in at all. He has a human mother, and maybe a father who loves his mom.

Maybe there’s a universe, somewhere, where everything is different. Maybe there’s a universe where he turned out alright.

Luther’s skin itches. He gets up, and goes to water his plant.


	22. Coffee

"Come on," says Dolores for the fourth time in the past ten minutes. "Let's go do something." Her fingers drum on the wood of the table.

“No.” Five keeps jiggling his leg, intently watching the fresh coffee drip into the pot.

“Please?” insists Dolores. “I’m boooored.”

“And I’m decaffeinated.”

“No, you’re just an asshole! Come _on_!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

Five doesn’t answer this one, rolling his eyes and continuing to watchfully wait for his coffee. Dolores scoffs and stands up from where she’s sprawled on the table just to walk over and kick him in the leg. He kicks back.

“Don’t kick me!”

“You kicked me first!”

“Children,” chimes in Mom from where she just walked into the kitchen. “Be nice.”

“Sorry, Mom,” says Five at the same time as Dolores says, “Sorry, Grace.”

“Just Mom is fine, dear.” Mom smiles as she repeats what she has said many times. All of them know that Dolores won’t ever call her that, but the effort is nice.

Claire giggles from where she’s hanging onto Mom’s back like a koala. “Grandma!” she giggles. “Grandma, can we have pancakes?” Mom reaches up and pats her head, smiling even more warmly than before. Claire giggles again.

“Sure, Claire.” Mom shifts her granddaughter so she’s sitting on her shoulders and not her back. She turns to Five and Dolores, the latter of whom is frozen with her foot in the air ready for another swift kick to Five’s shin. “Dolores, don’t kick Five.”

“Okay, Grace.”

Mom sighs. She walks over to the coffee pot and turns it off. Five opens his mouth to protest, but Dolores throws him a glance. He closes his mouth. The pot's more than half-full anyway.

“Food first,” Mom tells Five. “Then you can have a cup of coffee.”

“A cup-!”

“One cup,” cuts him off Mom. “You’re a growing boy, Five. So much caffeine isn’t good for you.”

“It’s not!” repeats Claire from her perch on Mom.

“Thank you, Claire.”

“Dolores, you can’t side against me with a four-year-old!”

“I’m five!” Claire says. “Not four! Keep up.”

Dolores snorts. Five sticks his tongue out at her, while Mom keeps smiling and rubs Claire’s little leg with affection. “Alright, down you go!” She lifts Claire up and off onto the table.

Claire giggles again and claps Mom’s cheeks. “Thanks, grandma!”

Dolores coos. Five has to stop himself from following suit.

“Now,” says Mom as she straightens up and brushes off her jeans. “Please don’t let Five get in the way and mess up these pancakes, okay?” She ignores Five’s indignant sputter. “This is a very important job, Claire. Can you handle it?”

“Of course,” Claire says as seriously as she can. “You can count on me, grandma!” Mom smiles again, even though the grin has never really left her face. Dolores coughs out a “called out” to Five, and Mom says, “And make sure Dolores doesn’t set fire to the kitchen.”

“That was one time!” exclaims Dolores, and now it’s Five’s turn to laugh. “No, shut up! You were part of it!”

“Was not! All I did was put the water on the stove!”

“Sure,” says Dolores. “Sure. Liar.”

“He’s right,” smugly says Claire, her eyes on Mom as she moves around the kitchen, apron already on.

“There are still char marks on the walls,” she calls over her shoulder. Mom bends down to get a pan from under the stove. “Do you guys want big or little pancakes?”

“Big!” calls out Claire.

“Also big!” says Dolores. “The biggest pancakes in the land!”

Five shrugs. “No preference.”

“Well then, big pancakes it is!” Mom sets the heavy pan on the stove with a slight clang. “Dolores, would you be a dear and go get the eggs?”

“Unless Diego’s already gotten to them,” stage whispers the girl in question to Five. “Okay!”

Five and Claire help Mom and Dolores get all the ingredients, then watch as Mom methodically whisks the dries together. Two eggs are cracked into the mixing bowl, no Diego in sight to devour them on the spot, thankfully. Claire is given a rubber-ended spatula to stir it all together.

Dolores and Five watch as the pancakes sizzle in the pan, the pot of cooling coffee forgotten on the counter.


	23. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> overstimulation warning

She wakes up in cold sweat.

Vanya’s heart is racing and she can feel her pulse pounding in her ears, the _boom boom boom_ of her heartbeat growing louder and faster with every stuttering breath she takes. Vanya presses a hand to her chest and tries to breathe.

The air gets caught in her throat, and she’s acutely aware of every tiny river dripping down her back. She can feel her ribcage under her skin, the way it’s pushing at her lungs.

Somewhere far away a dog barks, and Vanya’s eyes flash white. She gasps out another breath.

Her shaking hands are already reaching up to her ears, painstakingly slow. Finally, finally, they clamp down on the sides of her head.

It doesn’t help. Vanya can hear it all, the barking dog and the drunk man trying to unlock his door two streets over, and Diego breathing a door down from her and Five whimpering in his sleep upstairs, and why did they decide to sleep in their old bedrooms? Vanya coughs because she feels something itch at the back of her throat. She tries to suppress it before remembering that Klaus is sleeping downstairs on the couch, having given up their conjoined room to Vanya the night before. He’d claimed that out of them all, he was the most used to sleeping in unorthodox conditions.

She hadn’t found it in herself to argue, and went to bed in a too-big room, alone. It's too late now, the cough is gone and her throat feels raw.

Vanya feels her eyes prickle with tears. Not the crying kind, but more the kind that appear when everything gets to be too much and you can’t focus on a single thing and you just-

She blinks away the white film that keeps flickering in and out of her sight. Everything is crisp to the point that it gets too sharp at the edges.

Vanya hesitates, and then rips her hands from her ears, digging them into her eyes instead. She does it so quickly she almost doesn’t have time to lower her eyelids before the heels of her hands are pushing against her eyes.

On the back of her eyelids, bright white spots decorate her vision. Vanya moves her hands away.

She stays perfectly still, hoping for silence. Silence. Sweet dark unassuming silence.

_Her face hurts with the force of her grin, even though her countenance is completely and utterly blank. Her fingers ache with the tension of strings pressing into her fingertips, even though her hands are light and quick on the fingerboard of her violin. Maybe her smile is hidden after all._

_Her eyes are white and her skin is white and her suit is white and everything is white, stark hospital clean against the dark of the night._

_Her eyes are open. Like stage lights, they shine and illuminate her own performance. How efficient of her. She should do this more often, because playing solo is so much more than it has ever been before._

_A gun goes off._

"Vanya," whispers somebody from the outside of her room. "Are you okay?"

She pulls herself out of the recounting of her dream, or maybe the recounting of something that wasn't a dream at all. She finally, finally takes a deep breath.

"Yeah," she whispers back into the night. “Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry.”

Luther hums. “Bad dream?”

For a moment the moon peeks through her window, big and bright and missing a chunk. The light falls across her hands and Vanya sees how colorless her fingernails are.

“Yeah. Just a nightmare.”


	24. Afterlife

People die.

**2006**

Everything explodes into pain, pain much greater and sharper than his pain should be, and he screams. Then he can’t scream any longer, because suddenly he lacks key body parts that screaming requires.

It’s dark when Ben wakes up. He can’t see an inch in front of him, disoriented and confused. His stomach aches with remnants of agony. He reaches a hand to his abdomen to rub at his skin, but finds that there’s nothing there. Then he notices that there isn’t a hand either.

Ben drops his nonexistent hand to his side. He stands up, or tries to, as best he can. He can’t feel a floor under him or anything like that, so getting to his missing feet is a challenge. He manages to get up, positioning himself so that down and up - or where he thinks down and up are - are in the right place.

Ben bites his lip. Or maybe he doesn’t, because he’s dead and dead people don’t have lips the same as alive people do, don’t they. Or maybe Ben is wrong entirely, and he’s in a coma. Or something.

He steps forward and has to immediately pull himself back, because there’s nothing there. There was nothing where he was standing before too, of course, but this nothing feels like a different sort. Ben takes a step back, and is thankful to find solid emptiness.

It all goes white. Ben doesn’t shield his eyes, but he startles from the abrupt brightness, the intensity of the white piercing him clean through.

“So,” says a voice, all sharp tones and no-nonsense. It sounds like Dad’s, but younger, like a kid who thinks she knows it all. “You’re dead.”

Ben nods at the little girl. He hat is tilted back on her head, looking like it’s close to falling off. She guides a bike next to her, walking. “I am. I think.”

“Good, that means I won’t have to deal with some kind of,” she wrinkles her nose, “meltdown. Ben Number Six Hargreeves, do you know why I’m talking to you right now?”

Ben shrugs. “No. Just Ben is fine.” He wants to continue, wants to say more, but the words don’t… They don’t.

The girl nods resolutely. “I’m talking to you because you’re special.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. You’re special. Like a… corner piece in a puzzle. There’s only so many of you.”

Ben nods, slightly sluggish and slow. His thoughts take a while to click together, and he doesn’t know if this is the beginning of a headache or the end of one or just a side-effect of death.

“...Where am I?”

**1968**

The pain begins in his chest where the bullet hits, and doesn’t take its time spreading to his entirety. Dave is on the ground with gunshots still echoing in his ears. His heartbeat is acute in his ears, each pulse like a thunderclap inside his head. Klaus is saying something, but it’s too late.

When his eyes open, it’s bright. Too bright. Everything is oversaturated, the colors leaking out of his surroundings and onto the floor.

Dave finds that he can’t quite place what exactly the scenery is. It seems like it’s a neat row of houses, but that’s definitely a tree, and those mountains are really high.

Dave reaches up to his chest and feels that it’s slick with blood. The red is still wet, only the edges dry and starting to flake. His shirt is hopelessly torn, soaked through with blood.

Dave goes to finger his dog tags, but they’re gone. Klaus must have-

Klaus is gone too. But that’s probably not right, because. Dave died, didn’t he? Dave is dead. Dave is gone and Klaus is left behind, left sobbing over Dave’s bleeding body. Hopefully, the bullet made it out, at least. Dave doesn’t think he’s too keen on the idea of having to dig a little silver pellet out of his chest.

Dave’s feels like everything around his is shaking. Vibrating. He tries to take a step.

“Don’t do that,” a voice says. Dave turns around and a little girl is on the swings, kicking her legs as she goes higher and higher in the air. “Just stay where you are.”

Dave opens his mouth, but then realizes. He doesn’t know where he is, exactly. He’s dead, he knows that, but where did he go after the last breath left his body?

“Where am I?”

**2019**

Eudora feels like there’s some kind of sad joke in getting pierced with a bullet. She always carries a gun, after all, her finger firm over the trigger and ready to push if necessary. And now somebody pulled the trigger on her, sending her toppling to the ground.

Eudora’s head hits the ground with a thump, and then everything fades.

When she wakes up, she’s somewhere else. No dirty motel floor and no city, just…

She can’t describe it. It’s like there’s everything and nothing at once, enclosing her from all sides. Eudora doesn’t press her hand to the bullet wound in her chest. She doesn’t need to. She’s far too aware of it anyway.

Eudora looks around. She thinks that she can see other people, somewhere in the background, washed together with the monotone color scheme. Eudora steps forward, and finds that she can walk just fine, even though she bled out minutes ago. Or seconds ago? Hours?

Time flows weird.

Eudora takes another step, and keeps stepping one foot in front of the other. She walks and she doesn’t know where she’s going, but it’s important. She can feel it. Eudora walks until she’s standing in front of a house, nothing remarkable about it. A girl pushes open the front door.

“Oh,” she says. “It’s you. Why do the people important to the timeline keep dying?” Eudora opens her mouth to answer her and also ask what the hell that means, but she’s waved off. “Come on. Get inside, I have cookies.”

Eudora sits on the couch and picks at a cookie, as the little girl sits across from her and stares. Her cookie is lying in a plate on her knees, untouched.

“Why did you have to go and get killed?” she complains out loud. “That makes everybody’s job harder, you know. You and the other two really need to figure out how to keep yourself alive.”

“The other two?”

The girl flaps her hand. “Not important. You’re dead, that’s much more urgent to talk about, don’t you think?”

Eudora shrugs. “I don’t know.”

The girl squints at her, and then rolls her eyes and sighs. “Well, now that you’re here, you might as well look around.”

“...Here?” Eudora’s eyes brush over the neat interior of the room they’re sitting in. It’s quiet. “Where is... here? Where am I?”

All Time, Constant, Immeasurable

She is asked the same question thrice, each time by a different person. First the boy who ripped himself apart, then the soldier who got shot - and by that stupid self-righteous organization, no less - and last the cop. Also shot. She holds back a sigh.

Why do they all have to make it so unnecessarily complicated? Just go and die, will you. Not like it hinders everything she’s trying to do. Not at all.

She tries not to be too bitter, because even she can admit it’s not exactly their fault. But still.

“Where am I?”

She mulls it over. She could give a straight answer and risk everything, or she could just say what they want to hear. Or she could do what she frankly enjoys doing, and not give an actual answer, or anything that seems useful, for the matter.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “What matters is what you’ll choose. Stay or go?”

Three voices chorus, “What?” Or something similar to that. Details of the human soul. How quaint.

“You can go back as a ghost,” she says. “Or you can move on. Your choice.”

She tries not to fidget as three minds think over her words.

**2006**

Ben bites his lip.

“I’d like to go back,” he says with his empty mouth. “If that’s okay.”

**1968**

“Can I go back? I want to see him. He needs me there.” Dave thinks of the dog tags that Klaus sometimes had hanging around his neck. He wore Dave’s sometimes, as a sort of promise.

**2019**

Eudora looks at the doorway to the kitchen. Then at the door that she walked in through.

“I think I’ll stay,” she says. “Diego can’t be left on his own. He’s probably already gotten arrested, or something.”

**No Time, Everywhere, Uncountable**

She lets out a silent sigh of relief, and three humans are now back where they left off, none of them living.

“You’ll thank me later,” she mumbles, rhetoric. “I don’t think you three are suited for the afterlife anyway. Not yet.”


	25. Soundtrack

You do not hear angels sing as you begin your descent into hell. You didn’t expect any, anyway, but some accompanying music would have been nice. A chord or two to draw in somebody, to make them see the visual in all of its glory.

It would have been nice.

One foot in front of the other. You wonder if it’s too late to turn back. It is, of course, but the thought that returning home is an option is comforting.

You walk.

Your hand grips hers, and then it’s all gone. He has his hand around her throat, and you rush to catch her before she hits the ground and shatters into pieces. It’s all too raw, too tender, the wound festering in your middle. The gun clatters to the floor.

You decide that it’s time for her to go. She can’t keep walking along with you, because she deserves more than you could ever give. You make a detour to drop her off where she began her journey, and wish her the best of luck in finishing it.

“She likes sequins,” you tell the woman walking past. She looks at you like you’re insane, and as the light hits Dolores’s face you think that maybe you are. It’s all a blur.

The woman in black gives you a shark-like smile - sharp teeth ready to dig into your flesh and rip you apart hidden by clean-painted lips, the color almost as bright as freshly spilled blood. You would know. The longing for a steady beat to sync your footsteps to grows stronger.

You walk past your siblings, their shocked faces staring after you in fear. You don’t even bother. Replenishing your energy is much more important. The kitchen is on your way.

Peanut butter, jelly, bread, marshmallows. Knife. You think you might focus too much on the knife, but it doesn’t matter, because if you focus on the wrong thing there will be no more knife and no more sandwich. There will be nothing at all except for you and Dolores and billions of dead bodies rotting around you.

You can feel music fade from the air, and you almost throw your food to the ground in frustration. You were so close. So fucking- So fucking close.

When everything is shaking with the force of the euphony, you allow yourself a quick smile. It fades just as fast, because everything shakes harder and the ceiling starts to cave.

A gunshot echoes, and for once, you’re not the one pulling the trigger. Your sister - the other one, with the slit throat that you can’t remember being there the first time - is holding the barrel mere inches away from the violinist’s head.

_The Man in the Moon came tumbling down, and-_ something something. You can’t remember the rest of the rhyme, the little story your mother used to tell you sometimes before bed. It seems fitting, right now, with the chunk of moon hurtling toward all of you puny humans, all equal to absolutely nothing in the face of this great destruction.

Your brother was right. The moon is part of the apocalypse.

You think you hear music crescendo, and feel it, you’ve reached the last stop, Orpheus looking for salvation finally arriving in the dark of the underworld.

_Tomorrow is another day, and when the night fades away, you’ll be a man, boy._

_But for now, it’s time to run._

You grip two hands, your sister and your brother, and you make a dash toward the escape you were promised years ago.


	26. Tattoos

Klaus is the only one of them that has tattoos other than the ones forced onto them by Dad. Allison looks at the faded umbrella on her wrist and turns away, shoving thoughts about her brother aside in favor of checking her reflection in the car window. She fixes her hair, even though it looks impeccable, as always.

They arrive at the Academy. Allison lingers in the seat of the taxi, unwilling to set foot in the house of monsters any sooner than she has too. The driver coughs into his fist and Allison fumbles for her wallet. She tips him, generously. It’s not like she can’t afford it, and he deserves it, putting up with the bullshit that is paparazzi.

Allison steps out of the car and in moments, it is gone.

She swallows down her anxiety as she takes careful measured steps to the doors of the mansion and walks in.

Vanya is on the other side, and Allison greets her, giving her sister a smile and a hug. Diego walks up to them, saying that Vanya doesn’t belong. There’s a part of Allison that agrees, a little bit, but she doesn’t let it show.

“You’re seriously going to do this today?” she calls after her brother as he starts climbing up the stairs.

He doesn’t answer, and she calls out another barb to his retreating back. “Way to dress for the occasion, by the way.”

“At least I’m wearing black.”

Her mind jumps to the black ink on all of their arms. All of their arms except for…

Vanya coughs. “You know what, I- Maybe he’s right, and I shouldn’t-”

Allison cuts her off with a hug. She very much does _not_ think about what was written in her chapter.

Going to Dad’s office, she can’t really figure out exactly why she’s doing it. It doesn’t matter though, because she’s there, and so is Klaus. Klaus with his tattoos that he got willingly. Klaus with his manic grin and wide eyes and frighteningly accurate impression of their father.

She wants to push his inked hands away when he goes in for a hug, but settles for a tight smile and perfectly faked laugh.

Allison hates tattoos.


	27. Abuse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> child abuse warning

the first time  
your father hits you  
is when you spill your porridge  
on the breakfast table  
  
you're four years old  
and he gets up, furious  
and slaps your hands  
hard  
  
you don't make a sound  
because it's for your own good  
a reprimand for bad behaviour  
and you deserve it  
  
the second time  
he strikes you  
is when you break the banister  
because you weren't in control  
  
you're five, going on six  
and the rest of your day is spent  
with a burning handprint  
emblazoned on your cheek  
  
you do not cry  
or call for your mother  
because it's for your own good  
and you deserve it  
  
it continues like this  
ages seven, eight, nine  
and so on  
and it's okay  
  
it's good, even  
because you know he loves you most  
and only hits you  
when he wants you to be better  
  
you want to be better,  
don't you?  
it's for your own good  
and you deserve it  
  
nine, ten, eleven  
sharp words telling you to do better and  
out of breath panting  
after sprinting three miles  
  
twelve, thirteen, fourteen  
it continues  
and while your siblings throw wary glances at closed doors  
you see no issue  
  
you see no mission  
to bring to completion  
and so you do nothing  
but your best  
  
you are twenty  
when your sister departs  
and leaves behind a magazine  
opened to a page about child abuse  
  
you scoff  
and toss it in the trash  
you're not abused  
your father loves you  
  
you're twenty two  
when you wake up  
in pain  
and inhuman  
  
you're twenty five  
when you stand in front of your father  
and are told you are to leave,  
to go far away  
  
you're twenty five  
and you're packing your bags  
to leave for the moon  
and stay there for an undetermined amount of time  
  
your thoughts drift back  
to the magazine left  
open  
for you to see  
  
"abused."  
you weren't abused  
you aren't abused  
right?


	28. Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for implied/referenced self-harm

The Earth is a blue and green marble from space; the two colors swirling together until Luther has to squint to tell them apart. It’s all so far away. If Luther lets himself drift thoughtlessly in his own mind, he can feel the warm sunlight on his skin.

His skin. Unnaturally thick and marred, pale lines and ugly folds crisscrossing it like a child’s stitching project. Luther’s now-blunt fingernails itch to move across his arms and dig grooves into his flesh. He shifts away from the porthole and forces his thoughts away from his planet. Dwelling won’t help any research get done.

It’s kind of nice, the monotone tests he does every day. He scans the soil and runs the machines; calculates the distances to the sun and the nearest satellite and the ISS. And the Earth. Shit.

Luther forgets to water his plant sometimes. It doesn’t have a name, because it’s silly to think that a plant would need one. And he doesn’t want to get attached. If he becomes _attached_ to the plant, that’ll just make it worse when he inevitably kills it with his inexperience.

When he forgets to water it, he has a hard time falling asleep. A harder time than usual. It’s hard to fall asleep now, with himself looking like he does and with the moon being so…

Empty. There’s nothing for hundreds of miles around him.

Luther pours some water into the watering can, and watches the thin streams wash over the plant without a name. He has to be careful, or else he’ll drown it.

The can is set aside with a sloshing sound that comes from the inside; the remaining water hits the sides and threatens to spill out of the top onto the table.

It’s not so bad, on the moon. It really isn’t that bad at all. The only part Luther really hates is how alone he is; how isolated his thoughts are inside his own head.

Years later, Luther stands like a wilted sunflower in a partly destroyed theatre, face tilted up; afraid. He thinks - as the rock, the chunk, the asteroid comes hurtling at them all, gaining speed with every second - that he was right.


	29. Isolation

The woman on the wall is named Madame Jacques-Louis Leblanc. She’s alone in her painting, faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Grace often mimics her pose, but never her smile. She simply can’t do it.

Five leaves first. He runs out of the door during breakfast, and at lunch when Grace sets out his plate he isn’t there. She smiles and looks around for him, and so do her children, as though a quick glance around the room will reveal their brother from where he must be hiding.

She spends another week setting out eight plates for meals, and then Pogo fiddles around with her programming. The next day there are only seven plates on the table.

Ben leaves next. Four children stumble into the house, and Klaus whispers to her with a dazed look in his eyes that their brother is dead. Grace wipes away his tears with a handkerchief she pulls out of her pocket. She does not think about how there are now only five children left for her to love.

Unlike Five’s, Ben’s seat doesn’t remain for a week. His plate is gone by breakfast the next morning. At the funeral, Grace smiles in sadness, or the closest thing to it she can feel.

One by one, her remaining children leave. Klaus saunters out the front door, Diego following suit the next week. Allison is picked up in a fancy car, for her first film, she announces as she closes the door. Vanya is gone overnight, her violin and music disappearing with her.

Only Luther stays, but soon enough he’s leaving too. Reginald sits at his desk and scribbles in his journal. Pogo keeps to himself in his quarters. Grace doesn’t have quarters to keep herself to.

She wanders the empty halls, cut off from the streets, isolated from the world outside. Grace cleans the dust from figurines and mirrors and thinks, she is so very lonely.


	30. Masks

They all sit around the table, pumpkin guts covering the wood. Klaus stabs into his pumpkin.

“Don’t hurt it,” says Ben. “Be nice.”

“To the pumpkin.”

“Be nice,” repeats Ben. “What did the pumpkin do to you?”

“Ben, Ben look.” Ben turns to Diego, who stares him down as he mutilates the orange fruit with a carving knife. Ben cries out in despair.

Allison fondly rolls her eyes and sighs, continuing chiseling at her own pumpkin. “Don’t antagonize Ben, Diego.”

“I’m not! I’m carving my pumpkin.”

Five snorts. His pumpkin is already in shreds, set aside.

Klaus looks down at the outline of a dog mask that’s slowly forming on his natural canvas.


	31. Apocalypse

For Luther, it’s looking up at the moon, watching the gaping hole in its side. It’s holding his breath as the rock comes flying at them, the trajectory set for collision. It’s squeezing his sister’s hand one last time.

_For Luther, it’s being slain with little effort, all that he has left to give suddenly becoming a glass eye, still covered in blood._

For Diego, it’s choking back stuttering sentences, poking and prodding at what their team used to be and what their family could have been. It’s seeing the asteroid and tightening his grip on a knife, knowing that it’s too late to fight.

_For Diego, it’s a demise that feels slow and languid, but in reality, only lasts fractions of a second. It’s falling down, a sharp bit of rubble cutting into his chest; still and lifeless._

For Allison, it’s pressing a hand to her aching throat, and letting the tears fall. It’s thinking of her daughter, thinking of Claire back in LA, reminding herself that it was all for nothing. It’s feeling her brother give her hand a final squeeze, and then letting go for good.

_For Allison, it’s begging her sister for mercy with tears in her eyes. It’s being met with cold eyes boring into her soul, tearing her apart._

For Klaus, it’s tilting his head up, and looking to his brother. It’s wishing that he could drip blue onto him like candlewax one last time, if only to pull him into an embrace and never let go. It’s clenching his fingers around the dog tags around his neck, and hoping for something he can’t place.

_For Klaus, it’s giggling as his sister who might not be his sister right now at all turns to him, her face blank and her bow at the ready._

For Five, it’s fighting back hot tears as he realizes it’s all been for nothing. It’s hopelessness washing over him like a tidal wave, smothering his senses. It’s the crushing feeling inside his chest as he understands that there’s only one way out.

_For Five, it’s appearing in the end of the world. It’s stumbling senselessly around, screaming and crying out for somebody who won’t come. It’s drinking and scribbling and breaking down, and it’s shooting and slashing and gathering blue at the tips of his fingers until he can’t feel his body. It’s finding death wherever he goes, not for the last time._

For Ben, it’s looking at his brother, and wondering how he is doing this. It’s tearing himself apart, and it’s realizing that soon, soon he might meet his siblings on the other side. It’s holding his hands to his stomach, and trying not to let the monsters out, even though it won’t make any difference.

_For Ben, it’s watching everything around him burst, and staring at four bodies on the ground in shock._

For Vanya, it’s her violin. It’s a melody stretching into everywhere. It’s a burning at the center of her chest. It’s everything. It’s nothing.

_For Vanya, it’s white._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we're done! the month is over. this was really fun, and i look forward to next year! <3 thank you evan for making such a wonderful prompt list :)

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr's [@seven-misfits](https://seven-misfits.tumblr.com/) and i'm crying over how unnecessarily long i make all of these.
> 
> drop a line, tell me what you think!


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